The Guilt of Breathing
by Starving For Attention
Summary: Harry inadvertently thought of dementors, determined to suck the soul out of his body. Those who sacrificed their lives in his name were now coming to avenge what they had lost.


**As always, the characters of the Harry Potter world do not belong to me. I'm merely using them for my own twisted benefit of catharsis.**

**Hope you enjoy my relapse into the world of fanfiction, and please review!**

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Harry lay face-down on the earth, the damp sand sneaking into the crevice between his lips, making him splutter and choke. His skin was on fire — it hurt to feel, to live, to exist. He prayed for it to end, willed the pain to cease. His vision was temporarily lost as his scar seared; surely it was threatening to tear his skull in half. . .

"Stand, Potter," said a cold, high voice that made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand on end, but Harry was already halfway up by the time he spoke.

"Had enough?" the voice of Lord Voldemort taunted softly, a cruel smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Harry stared wordlessly back into Voldemort's blood-red eyes, his jaw set. "No?"

He twirled Harry's wand in his left hand thoughtfully, pointing his own at the water surrounding them. "This should come as a treat to you, Potter," he said with a bite of amusement coloring his words. Fear clenched at Harry's stomach as dark shapes began to emerge from the water. They moved slowly and deliberately, but Harry was rooted to the spot as he watched them climb to the shore where he stood.

"I have taken it upon myself to enhance their features, to make them more, ah, _recognizable_," Voldemort whispered maliciously, his eyes narrowing as he watched Harry stare into the black depths of the lake. "You know what to do." He dropped Harry's wand on the ground, and with the swish of his cloak and a loud _crack_, he was gone.

The sound seemed to snap Harry out of his reverie, and he scrambled across the small island and scooped up his wand. The Inferi were closing in on him from all sides, and Harry raised his wand, prepared to ignite a fire that would repel them, but the sight of the two closest corpses halted him once again. His stomach lurched.

A swatch of bright purple hair grew atop the head of the left-most one, and from this sight alone, Harry knew what — or who — was coming. Tonks marched dutifully toward the center of the island on which he stood, her eye sockets hollow and black, but she nevertheless moved toward him as if she could see. Lupin crouched beside her, half of his face rotted away, the bones of his cheek and jaw visible through the gap in the side of his face. His skin still adhered to the other side, lined and worn as ever, though now maintaining an eerie green tinge from the water in which he had been residing. Harry spun around.

The small frame of Colin Creevey moved sloth-like, almost drowsily, out of the water, a cluster of blonde hair gathered around his deteriorating ear. His hands groped out, reaching for the only living person in the cave, and Harry inadvertently thought of dementors, determined to suck the soul out of his body. The corpses of those who sacrificed their lives in his name were now coming to avenge what they had lost.

Beside him was Fred Weasley, his shocking red hair matted and glued to his head by the water. His mouth was curved into a smile, but the effect was even more disturbing — Harry had a clear view of the lack of teeth, and the nauseating sight of the decomposing flesh within his skull. His heart racing, wand still raised, Harry spun around once again.

Mad-Eye's magical eye was missing from the socket that was twice the size of the other. The patch of skin that clung to his emaciated face was as scarred as ever, but the distinctive nose which had a chunk missing was no longer there; in its stead was a hole into whose depths Harry resisted seeing, though his eyes fought to seek them out. Severus Snape's hair was no longer greasy, but still hung like a curtain around his face, dripping with water. The gaping holes in his flesh were glowing with a blue-silver light, his memories pumping through his body like blood. A drop ran down his cheek, along the side of his mangled, hooked nose, from the tear duct that somehow remained intact in the corner of his eye.

Scrimgeour's mane of hair was missing, but his distinctive limp remained as he moved steadily toward the center of the island. Cedric Diggory's handsome features had deteriorated into porous clumps of rotting muscle and yellowing bone. His godfather's dark hair was past his shoulders, framing his gaunt face. He stared at Harry relentlessly, though his eyes had long since parted ways with their owner. Harry turned away and swallowed the overwhelming urge the vomit, but regretted doing so as soon as he had seen the two figures who were groping their way toward him from the other side of the patch of earth. In this instant, Harry knew why Voldemort had put him here, why he had returned his wand to him.

Had the patch of hair atop the corpse's head not so eerily resembled the one he saw in the mirror every day, Harry doubted he would have been able to recognize its identity. James Potter's skin was completely stripped from the bone, and crawled from the lake beside a woman with bright red, long hair, and eyes as brilliantly green as Harry's. . .

He stared at his mother's body with a mixture of repulsion and overwhelming sadness. Her jaw was sagging, her eyes present, but unseeing. She moved toward her son as if a magnet was pulling her forward, and though Harry knew from the moment he saw the water stir what he must do, at this instant, the image of him laying down his wand and letting the bodies drag him into the depths of the water, letting death envelop him just as it had claimed every single one of them seemed unshakably pervasive. . . .

He turned to Moody first, raising his wand a bit higher. "_Stupefy_," he whispered, watching as the boney shoulder was pushed backwards by the force of the spell as if someone had bumped into it. The corpse-Moody looked at his shoulder, as if he found the phenomenon as interesting as Harry found it terrifying, and continued his pursuit toward the center of the island.

Harry spun toward Scrimgeour. "_Impedimenta_!" A similar effect occurred, and Harry found himself running through the spells he had learned in Hogwarts, spells that would grant him moments, if that. The one spell he knew would be effective, however, remained on the tip of his tongue, pushed to the back of his mind and throat by the side of his brain that knew how terrible it would be to essentially re-murder everyone who had died for him in the first place in such a painful manner.

When the first hand grabbed him, it seemed to send a message of triumph to the rest of the group, and Harry wasn't sure if he imagined their increase in speed as they stomped and crawled toward him, or if they really were that much more elated by their success. In a matter of seconds, Harry found himself shaking with the effort of pulling away from the grasps of the rotting hands that held him in place. He thrashed and spun, but none of it seemed to do much good as the Inferi fought their way over one another in their efforts to reach him. He started as he felt a slimy hand on his right wrist, inching its way toward the wand he still had gripped in his palm. A bolt of terror rocked his core, and guided by a sense of overwhelming desperation, he gathered his strength, squeezed his eyes shut, and yelled, "_INCENDIO_!"

Flames erupted from the end of his wand, and the cave was suddenly all too bright — bright enough to see the blackish-green tinge of the rocky walls, bright enough to clearly see the anguished faces of the Inferi who were hit by the fire, bright enough to see the hundreds of other unrecognizable corpses lying beneath the water's surface–

Having never learned how Dumbledore created a lasso of fire around the two of them, Harry repeated the spell at the approaching Inferi. "_Incendio_! _Incendio_! _Incendio_!" He tried not to focus on the looks of pain and sadness on their faces as more and more Inferi caught fire and retreated back into the lake. The smell of burning hair and flesh filled the enclosed space, making his eyes sting and water. He ignored the unceasing attempts at upheaval his stomach was making, and instead tried to focus on the prospect of escaping this hellish place alive.

"_INCEN_—"

But his spell was cut short as a decomposing hand grabbing at his throat from behind. The pointy bone dug into his skin and, as it pulled away, left gauges that bleed profusely. He clasped a hand to his neck to cease the bleeding, but the blood leaked between his fingers and painted the sand beneath him a deep crimson. He dropped his wand and pressed his right hand atop his left, fighting the lightheadedness that had overcome him. He saw a flash of red hair out of the corner of his eye before two pairs of hands grabbed at his forearms, pulling him toward the bank of the island and into the water. His poorly aimed kicks did nothing to aid in his escape, and time seemed to slow to a painfully drawn-out pace as his vision clouded and darkened. The pair of eyes that belonged to his mother, staring him down with a triumphant fire, were the last things he saw before darkness overcame him and the pain was gone.

Blood rushed to his head as Harry jolted awake and sat up quickly, reaching for his glasses as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. Once his glasses slid over his ears and onto his nose, he grabbed the wand that had lain beside them and whispered "_Lumos_," stumbling his way along the path that the light unearthed, toward the bathroom.

He lifted his wand to the mirror and stared at his reflection. There were dark circles under his eyes, magnified to be larger than life by the lens in his glasses, but nothing else seemed particularly extraordinary about his appearance. His neck was free of scars or blood, his hair was dry - save for the sweat that had gathered at his brow - and his scar looked just as it always had. His heavy breathing slowed as he took in his appearance. It was only a dream.

A flash of red hair out of the corner of his eye.

Harry spun around quickly and raised his wand arm, but quickly lowered it apologetically at the terrified look on his wife's face. "What's wrong?" Ginny asked him, her voice quavering.

Harry sighed and placed his hands on either side of the bathroom sink, bowing his head. "Bad dream."

Ginny knew better than to ask what had happened. Nightmares such as these weren't uncommon, and Harry always tried to suppress them or hide them from her, insisting that they didn't bother him. It was nights like this, when he awoke with a sweat and his heart racing, that made her doubt his ability to keep everything neatly bottled up inside. The guilt of the war, and the lives lost in his defense, still plagued him more than anyone else.

She slowly, cautiously walked behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his back. He looked up and caught her gaze in the mirror.

"It was just a dream," Ginny whispered soothingly, but her worried eyes gave away the uncertainty of her words. They stood in silence, pressed against one another, fighting to stem the flow of memories and images that rushed into their minds of all those lost. They thought of Lupin, and Tonks, staring at the bewitched ceiling of the Great Hall without seeing, just a few among a crowd who had risked their lives for the Boy Who Lived. They thought of Mad-Eye, who had fought the good fight until the very end. They thought of Dumbledore and Snape, of Dobby and Hedwig, of Colin and Fred, and wished their fates were just as false as Harry's dream.


End file.
